


Tomorrow will be kinder

by teeglow



Series: Constance and Aramis, heart to heart [6]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Angst, Drunk!Aramis, Episode: The Queen's Diamonds, Gen, Sad!Aramis, Tag to S3 E3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:20:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22177699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teeglow/pseuds/teeglow
Summary: After the incident with Pauline, Aramis is mourning more than just the loss of a childhood friend. He misses his brothers. Most of all, he misses the days when they trusted him.Or: Constance finds Aramis drunk and brooding. She tries to sort him out.
Relationships: Aramis | René d'Herblay & Constance Bonacieux
Series: Constance and Aramis, heart to heart [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/731502
Comments: 17
Kudos: 54





	Tomorrow will be kinder

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the latest instalment of the Angsty Aramis and Caring Constance series (I really should rename it). 
> 
> This is because I really am still quite ~frustrated~ with the way the gang treat Aramis in Season 3 - and even though there be fondness in the way Athos calls Aramis his 'penance', he doesn't say it very fondly to the person who needs to hear it most. And frankly, it's true that they don't talk enough about their past (I'm still not sure Athos knows about who Isabelle was and why Aramis cried over her. AND HE DOESN'T ASK!). Anyway. Here we go.
> 
> *EDITED* - I felt this chapter was a bit much, especially towards the end, to the point of being out of character. I've changed it now, hopefully in better preparation for a second chapter.

Constance catches him later that evening in the Musketeers common room, sitting alone, nursing a tankard loosely on his knee. ‘So it’s been a bit of a day, then?’ she says, sitting down beside him. 

Aramis looks up absentmindedly. ‘Hmm? Oh. Yes.’ He huffs and lifts his cup to his lips. ‘You could say that.’

She watches him as he takes a long drink and puts the tankard back down, thumbing the handle distractedly. He doesn’t look at her, simply reclines against the table but she thinks he looks drawn. He doesn’t show any signs of elaborating.

‘Did everything go alright with Pauline in the end?’ she prompts after a moment. ‘D’Artagnan didn’t say.’

‘He wouldn’t know,’ he replies simply. ‘They had all left by that point.’

Constance wonders if she’s imagining the tinge of bitterness in his voice but she catches the way he glances at her out of the corner of his eye, almost guiltily, and she knows she isn't. 

He sighs. ‘St Pierre had her sent to a convent. It was the only-’ He stops himself, unsure of what precise details he should divulge, but he takes a deep breath and speaks anyway. ‘It was the only option after what happened.’ He takes a long swig of his drink. 

Constance looks at him puzzled and this time he answers her question before she can ask it. 

‘She killed a man.’

Constance takes a sharp intake of breath - well, she didn’t expect _that -_ and intuitively reaches out to him, her face full of pity. ‘Oh Aramis-’

He shakes his head. ‘He was blackmailing her and she was in love. And after all the things she’s been through-’ He tails off, exhaling sharply. ‘Well, it’s no excuse, I suppose.’ 

Constance agrees but knows how easy it is to say that when you’re on the outside. None of them have afforded Milady the same sympathy, and although Constance despises her, she knows that, like Pauline, her choices have not been easy. And though she had only met Pauline briefly, she could tell what she meant to Aramis. 

‘I’m sorry, Aramis,’ Constance says, meaning every word. 

He shakes his head again tightly, his lips thin with the effort of repressing his emotion. ‘She’s safe. That’s all that matters.’ 

‘Still. It’s not easy to see your friend like that.’

Aramis doesn’t say anything, just exhales and looks up to the sky. For a second, Constance thinks he looks a little lost, and she wonders why, for the second time that day, it was her he was telling all this to. 

She watches, frowning slightly, as he gulps down the last of his drink and shifts to pour himself another. In any other man, she might not have worried so much, but the speed with which Aramis refills his cup now speaks to a fear of stopping, rather than thirst. But she says nothing. For the moment.

'Do the others know?' she asks instead, after a beat. ‘About your childhood?’

If Aramis is taken aback by the question, he doesn’t show it. He shrugs and puts his tankard down on the floor beside him. 'More or less.'

'What does that mean?'

'It means they know bits of it. Maybe not all of it.' He leans forward and scrubs his hands down his face. 'To tell the truth, I don't know what anyone knows about me anymore.'

Constance’s frown deepens somewhat. This seems like a strange confession for a man who belonged to a brotherhood so tight outsiders call it The Inseparables. In the back of her mind, she wonders if he’s been drinking for a while, but then again, he didn't seem anything other than sober when she sat down. 

‘We don’t really talk about our pasts’ he admits. ‘Have you noticed?’

Constance shakes her head. 

‘They know about Savoy because Porthos was here when it happened, but Athos didn’t remember when the Duke came to visit. And we know about Porthos’ history, because he’s proud of it. Rightly so. And there are some things you have to talk about. But the rest - we’ve just not talked about it much.’

‘So you never told them about your mum?’

‘It’s not like that-‘ he says, slightly affronted at the (truly unintentional) implication that his mum and her job were secrets he was ashamed of. ‘There just never seemed to be a right time. And if they didn’t want to talk about their past, why would I? We decided long ago none of it made a difference. For better or worse.’

Constance’s thoughts, perhaps unbidden, turn to Marsac, and the way Aramis was left to deal with it, but she’s not sure either of them can handle talking more about that tonight, not given the day they’ve had. It’s not a subject that can be shrugged off lightly - but it lingers heavily above their heads. 

'I'm just so _tired_ , Constance,' he says dejectedly, without warning, as his head drops into his hands. And truthfully, he sounds exhausted. Her face creases a little in response and without thinking, she moves closer to him, placing a warm hand on his shoulder.

He peeks at her over his shoulder for a moment, his bottom lip caught between his teeth, before turning away. He looks like he might cry and goodness knows, Constance doesn’t know what to do about that. She wishes the others were here and in that moment, again, wonders why on earth they’re not.

She rubs his back gently. ‘It’s okay.’

He breathes. ‘Doesn’t feel like it right now.’ He runs a hand through his hair, his palm tightening his curls and letting them go again so they bounce over his forehead, and he sits back again. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to be like this.’

‘This isn’t just about Pauline...’ Constance posits carefully, ignoring his unwarranted apology. 

He doesn’t say anything but the way he’s sitting, all coiled up on his elbows despite attempts to make it look relaxing, speaks volumes. It takes all of a minute for the wind to go out of him. He sags back against the hard wooden table and puts a hand over his eyes.

‘ _Merde_ ,’ he breathes. ‘Just… _merde_.’

Constance worries and her arm twitches like she’s going to reach out again but she thinks better of it. ‘Aramis-’

His hand flies off his face abruptly and all of a sudden, it’s like can’t sit still, can’t breathe even. 

‘Ignore me, Constance. I’m not myself.’

He feels as though shame radiates from him, though quite what he’s ashamed of he’s not sure. Sleeping with the Queen? Truthfully, he can’t regret that. Not all things considered. But Aramis knows that shame is what his friends want from him. He remembers D’Artagnan’s face the day he told them he slept with the Queen like it was yesterday - the anger, yes, but most of all the disappointment. The boy had spent all that time looking up to Aramis and now…now he found him wanting. 

‘Do you ever just think people know you, but then-’ he tails off, thinking better of it. ‘Or maybe it’s me. I don’t know.’ He takes another gulp of his wine and slides it precariously onto on the table behind him. ‘They don’t trust me anymore.’

‘Aramis-’

He waves her off. ‘No, it’s fine, of course they don’t. I’ve been gone for four years. I…’ he struggles with saying the words aloud, ‘did...what I did... put everything at risk - people _died_ \- and then I just left, whilst they went to war. Left them to deal with my mess whilst I _atoned_. And then I came back. Just like that.’ He looks on the verge of tears again and, again, Constance doesn’t know what to do. ‘I wouldn’t trust me either. Would you?’

Constance knows he’s not really asking but reaches out to him anyway. ‘Aramis-’

‘They think Pauline was another _conquest_ .’ He almost spits the word as if it tastes bitter in his mouth, recoiling from Constance’s hand, which ghosts over his shoulder before returning, disappointed, to her lap. ‘Classic Aramis, back less than a month and already at it again. I ignored Athos’ orders at _gunpoint_..’

‘He wouldn’t have shot you,’ Constance says, tilting her head at him sadly.

Aramis carries on as if he didn’t hear her. ‘All we’ve been through, I don’t think he’s ever actually held me at gunpoint before. Probably long-deserved but-’ His voice catches in his throat. What he isn’t saying seems to echo around the room.

His fingers go into his hair as he leans forward again. Constance watches as, slowly, his shoulders begin to tremble. She moves closer, and puts her arm around him gently, relieved when he doesn’t recoil this time. 

‘You’ll always have a place here,’ she says, her voice barely above a murmur. ‘Aramis-’

‘No, it’s _fine_. It’s my fault-’ his voice hitches, ‘and-’ he angrily presses his the heel of his hand into his eyes and takes a deep breath. His shoulders still tremble but there’s something more contained about him now. As if a wall has been rebuilt, however unsteadily. 

‘You should go,’ he says after a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose as he takes a controlled breath. 

‘I’m not leaving-’

‘Please, Constance. It's okay. Just leave me tonight. I’ll be fine by morning.’

‘You won’t.’

Aramis laughs mirthlessly and his hand falls from his face.. ‘No...I suppose I won’t. But I’ll manage.’

‘Aramis-’ she tails off tenderly. He doesn’t look at her, just stares resolutely ahead and she wants so badly for him to deflate. He doesn’t.

In the quiet, it dawns on Constance that she shouldn’t be so surprised at this outburst after knowing Aramis as long as she has. It’s been years now, and still she’s as surprised as she was the first time he came alone to her door. He’s never hidden himself around her - there’s his easy smile and composed lean, all the bravado as subtle as the feather of his hat, but it didn’t take much scratching to get to the heart of him. He talked to her easily, whether it was about Anne, Pauline, or even Marsac - she has never forgotten the sight of him then, pale and bruised and dripping wet at her kitchen table, grieving so loudly even in his silence. She knows that he looked different a week later, and yet occasionally something dulls in his eyes that his friends don’t always see, but it’s not like he’s closer to her than he is them. That’s not it at all. 

It’s just - Aramis is right. They don’t discuss the past. Athos doesn’t want to, Porthos doesn’t need to and D’Artagnan - D’Artagnan has her. And it’s always made sense to her that Anne loves Aramis - the act of treason less so - but the very act of being in love itself has always seemed to her fairly natural. Anne is lonely and Aramis cares. He listens. But only now does it fully occur to her that Anne might have repaid the favour. Before then, Constance imagines, only God did the same. Her heart hurts to think of the readiness with which he spilled his guts, how open his heart is and how closed the world must feel to him at times. She always marvels that it’s her who has these talks with him, but now she thinks she understands. She stops to listen. 

She watches him closely as he gets up from the bench to find another bottle of wine, having picked up the one he was nursing to find it empty. She frowns slightly when he stumbles, quickly righting himself, and she would think nothing of it, except for the fact she spots one more empty bottle of wine on the floor, hidden previously by his leg. 

She was right, then. He had been drinking more than he let on tonight. It’s just she’s never seen him in his cups before and - well, it’s unlike anyone she’s ever come across. 

Aramis is a different kind of drinker to Athos, for starters. She’s seen Athos drunk countless times - not so much now, admittedly, but when she first came to know him, before D’Artagnan showed up. He’s quiet, brooding, prone to the odd bellow should the occasion arise, but mostly he kept to himself, drank himself to oblivion, and didn’t much care how he got home. 

Aramis, on the other hand, he’s coiled so tightly, she thinks he might snap - _is_ snapping right in front of her, really. He’s definitely _not sober_ , she does not doubt that now, but he’s still so tense. He’s not losing himself at all, not like Athos does. His tongue might be looser, but nothing else has followed. He seems afraid to lose control, even as he tries to let go of everything else. His body won’t obey him, it’s slower than usual, and she can tell he’s frustrated about it, despite the fact he’s got another bottle of wine and can only expect it to get worse. How a man can look so relaxed aiming a gun, and yet so wound up now when decidedly less than sober is beyond Constance. Once again, she wants to reach out as he sits beside her but she is afraid he’ll flinch. 

She shakes her head. ‘Aramis, you’re drunk.’

‘Well-noticed,’ he replies shortly, but not altogether unkindly, pouring himself another glass. 

‘That’s not like you.’ Whether Constance means the tone or the alcohol, or both, she doesn’t really say, but since it is the more immediate problem, Aramis addresses the latter. 

‘‘It seems to work for Athos, thought I’d give it a go.’ He shakes his head and takes a large gulp of his wine. 

‘Aramis-’

‘Constance, I’ve told you, you don’t need to look out for me-

‘Oh _stop_ it will you?,’ she snaps back at him. She’s started to reach the limits of her patience now. ‘I’m not doing you a favour. I’m worried about you!’

‘You needn’t-’

‘Oh yes I needn’t, but here I am anyway.’

‘I’m drinking, not drunk. There’s a difference.’

‘Not much right now.’

He looks at her with a challenge in his eyes as he takes another drink and she rolls her eyes but says nothing. It’s remarkable how quickly he’s gone from crestfallen to belligerent, but perhaps he’s not so different from other drunkards after all. 

She decides to choose her battles and waits for him to pick the conversation back up. She doesn’t have to wait long.

‘Did the Queen ever tell you what happened that night?’ he asks, throwing himself back into his seat heavily, wine splashing at the sides of his refilled cup.. ‘At the convent?’

This feels dangerous, even without Rochefort to contend with, but he ploughs on before she can really stop him.

‘The nun who died? Did you hear about her?’

Constance had heard - not much, Anne had mentioned her briefly in her prayers - but she didn’t know why Aramis was bringing that up now.

‘She was another of my _conquests_ once upon a time.’

Constance stills and her brow furrows. ‘What? Sister Helene?’ she asks incredulously, without time to marvel that her memory had served her so well. 

‘She was just called Isabelle when I knew her.’ Aramis grimaces. ‘See, Constance? Is it any wonder they don’t trust me? I slept with a woman and drove her to the nunnery. Ha.’ He drinks, as if to punctuate the thought. 

Constance, perplexed though she is, knows it can’t have been that simple. He’s speaking violently, paraphrasing the story so it can hurt him better. But she needs to know more than that if she’s to help. ‘How did you meet?’ she asks gently.

Aramis’ mouth is still half in his cup when his eyes flit towards her, and he looks at her strangely, as if surprised that the details should matter. ‘Our families were neighbours,’ he replies candidly. ‘We grew up together.’

‘Like Pauline?’

The mention of the name visibly pains him. ‘No, this was after. When I went to live with my father.’ He huffs out a hollow chuckle. ‘That turned out well for him.’ 

Constance feels bewildered. It's as if Aramis is suddenly a mystery to her, this, for all intents and purposes, open-hearted, earnest man who has never acted like he's hidden anything from them before in his life - never needed to. How could she know so little about a man whom she counted among her closest friends? Did she know him at all, did any of them? And yet that was precisely the problem. Did Athos know about Sister Helene at the convent? Did Aramis tell him?

There's still so much more to his story. Constance knew Aramis was young when he joined the Musketeers, younger still when he joined the infantry - if Isabelle, like Pauline, was from his earliest chapters, he could have scarcely been a teenager when they were together. ‘So what happened? Did you break up when you left for the Army?’ 

Aramis shakes his head. ‘Before. She- um’ He inhales sharply, as if the words have been stolen away for a second. ‘She fell pregnant.’

‘Oh Aramis-’ Constance starts, knowing all too well where this story must end and wishing, suddenly, that she had never asked. Or that she'd never had to. 

‘We were going to marry - _I loved her_ \- but then she-,’ he falters again, clearing his throat, but he pushes the next words out so quickly, as if they will somehow hurt him less that way, ‘She lost the baby and I never saw her again. Until the convent.’ 

He drinks again, hoping to plug the conversation once more, and Constance watches him sorrowfully, her heart feeling as though it was swelling out of her chest in its need to get to him. She had known, _known_ , that this story couldn’t have a happy ending - but this? This was too much. How had he borne this for so long? His first love lost to him twice. 

_If he had felt like this in the convent..._

‘See?’ he says again, interrupting Constance’s thoughts. ‘It’s no wonder the others don’t trust me, after all that.’

‘The others know?’ she asks, not meaning to sound quite so surprised, but given what little else his friends seem to know about him, she decides she can be forgiven. 

'Not all of it, but wow, imagine if they did.' He laughs but it’s a horrible, mean sound that Constance never wants to hear repeated. ‘Imagine if they did.’

Constance stays silent because, though his words are tinged with a bitterness that doesn’t seem to rightly belong to him, she knows there’s a grain of truth in what they imply. 

‘It’s funny, I used to understand them more too. Even when Marsac returned, I _knew_ they meant well. Never mentioned what happened there, never said anything about anything - didn't think I needed to. But maybe I should have. Maybe that was the start.’

‘What would you have said?’

He laughs again. ‘Quite.’ He shakes his head and huffs another little snicker into his cup before taking a long pull on his wine.

An odd stillness descends between them for a moment, where all they can hear is the occasional shout from outside the walls, a laugh or two as they filter through the shutters. Constance watches Aramis, considering carefully what she should say next. He looks so lonely, staring down at his tankard. She tries to catch his eye.

‘Aramis, whatever you think is happening, it’s not your fault. And-’ She hesitates.‘...I don’t think I’m the one you ought to be talking to.’

‘Go then.’

She sighs, and resists the urge to throttle him. ‘That’s not what I meant-’

‘Constance,’ he sighs. He twists to put his cup down on the table edge behind him and leans over for the bottle of wine, but before Constance can interject to ask him if that’s wise, the bottle slips from his hand, smashes on the floor and he knocks the cup with it. He just stares at the mess, hand in midair, as if he hasn’t got a clue what happened and why. And he folds in on himself, hands white-knuckled in his hair.

Constance goes to him now, she’s watched this charade enough tonight. She takes him by the shoulders and pulls him out of his slump. ‘Come on,’ she says, ‘I think you’ve had enough.’

He tries to pull away but it’s a half-hearted effort and she’s having none of it. She takes his face by the chin and makes him look up at her. His eyes are bleary; he looks a mess now, his face pale in the candlelight. She shakes her head at him. ‘If only you knew…’ she says, wistfully, before sighing, pushing his hair back from his face. He pulls away.

‘Knew what?’

Constance raises an eyebrow. ‘Do you want a list?’

He looks at her, expression muddled, and after everything he’s told her tonight, she relents, with as much resignation as anything else. She tugs him by the arm. 'Come on, I think it's long past time you went to bed.'

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand absentmindedly and gets to his feet with a huff. 'I'm not a child, Constance.'

'No, you're not,' she says sternly. 'But you are my friend, and I think you need some sleep. Things will be better in the morning.'

He scoffs. 'Indeed.' He goes to leave, but Constance stops him, a hand on his arm.

'Aramis,' she says gently. 'I don't mean-' She stops, unsure of exactly what she wants to say and how to say it, but knowing she has to say something. He is desperately sad and in front of her, and he's turned to her in such a time, she can't let him leave thinking she's not listened. 'It _will_ be better,' she says in the end. 'But I understand why it doesn't feel like that now.'

He smiles wryly and gives her a little (condescending, really) pat on the hand that she _hates_. 'If you will it so, Constance, I believe it.' He pulls away again and Constance can barely watch him look so _forlorn_ as he moves towards the door. She’s never seen him drunk, but she’s certainly seen him vulnerable often enough by now. She wonders if the wine just made it that more tolerable for _him_. 

Either way, he’s going to have one hell of a headache when he wakes up. She spots a bucket in the corner and (quite wisely, in her opinion) makes a note to place it outside his room. She wonders if she has said enough, told him enough, whether she should stop him and tell him just how _loved_ he is. In the end, she decides to save it for when she knows he’ll remember it.

* * *

* * *

When Constance emerges again hours later, this time with an armful of empty bottles, D’Artagnan looks in it with a scrunched-up nose. ‘Good night?’ he asks and Constance moves away towards the little tap near the garrison gates.

‘Not as good as Aramis',’ she says, matter-of-factly and D’Artagnan stops in his tracks.

‘What?' He looks, perplexed, to the common room door and back to Constance who frowns as she rinses out the first bottle. 'He looked fine earlier.'

‘Well, he wasn’t.’ She stands up straight, looks her husband directly in the eye as she asks, ‘Did you even bother to ask him who Pauline was?’

‘Pauline-?’ he starts, and stops immediately at Constance’s glare. ‘You mean the woman he met in the square?’

Constance hates the way he says ‘woman,’ and shakes her head as she thrusts the clean bottle into his hand, moving past him again. ‘You’re all useless, you know that. He’s your friend and you constantly seem frustrated with him. Like you think he’s more trouble than he’s worth.’

‘That seems unfair,’ he replies. ‘We were there with Rochefort, we were there when he committed _treason-’_

‘Oh he knows that sure enough. But where were you after Marsac, hmm? And do you know about Sister Helene? The Queen does, but you lot don’t seem to. Have you ever even asked?’

D’Artagnan narrows his eyes. ‘ _You_ seem to know a lot about him.’

‘I listen, D’Artagnan!’ she snaps. ‘ _You_ could learn a thing or two about that.’

She deflates and looks back to the room she just vacated and shakes her head again. ‘He was drinking. And lonely. And I don’t think he had anywhere else to turn tonight. I doubt I’d know anything otherwise.’

The thought makes her heartsick. He’s been living with that story, for so long, and he only shared it because the wine - not to mention, all that trouble with Pauline - loosened his tongue and laid him bare. Her gaze flits unhappily to his door, partially hidden beyond the stables, and she worries about him - worries about tomorrow. She turns back to her husband, watches as he searches her out for what she has to say next. She smiles sadly.

‘None of this is my place to say,’ she says quietly, but puts her hand softly on her husband’s cheek. ‘But just be gentler with him, will you? He didn’t abandon you. And you know better than anyone that he doesn’t ask for help.’

‘He asks you.’

‘Because I always seem to catch him at breaking point, not because he wants to. The Queen too, I think. Perhaps he can lower his defences-’

‘He can around us!’

‘Not if you don’t trust him, he can’t!’ D’Artagnan looks dutifully chastised and she softens. ‘He’s sorry about what happened with Rochefort, you know he is. But whatever image of himself he’s projected on the world, you know he how deeply he feels. You know this, Charles. He’s your best friend.’

D’Artagnan bites his lip. ‘I didn’t realise-’

‘You’ve had other things on your mind, I know.’ She stands on her tiptoes and kisses him on the cheek. ‘Just...don’t forget about him? That’s all I’m asking.’

‘I didn’t-’

‘You did, sweet. You did. Easily done after four years, but it was as hard for him as it was for you - you wouldn’t say it was easy for me, would you, and I wasn’t out on the frontlines either.’

D’Artagnan had never thought about it like that. Not that he had thought any less of Aramis for not fighting with them, but he could begrudgingly admit that he had considered his hardships superior. Which was unfair, not only to Constance’s point but also because Aramis was a seasoned soldier long before him. He’d been at La Rochelle, for goodness sake. 

The true weight of his wife’s words begins to dawn on him further. ‘Shit,’ he breathes. 

She smiles wryly. ‘Indeed.’

‘I didn’t-’

‘I know.’

‘No, but I really didn’t-’

‘I know. It doesn’t matter. Just- go and see him.’

D’Artagnan nods, and turns to walk towards Aramis’ door. Constance rolls her eyes affectionately and stops him by the arm. ‘Maybe not now,’ she says softly, as if it should have been obvious. She can’t imagine the conversation would get very far tonight and even if it did, Aramis would be so embarrassed. She wonders even now if she’s said too much. But if something good comes of it - if things improve - she won’t be sorry for it. ‘Go in the morning. He’ll be better then.’

D’Artagnan casts one last look towards Aramis’ rooms and agrees.

‘Okay,’ he says resolutely. ‘Tomorrow then.’

**Author's Note:**

> Don't even get me started on the lads not telling Aramis the Dauphin plan after he inherits the throne. DON'T EVEN.
> 
> (Actually do feel free to commiserate with me about it in any reviews - all gratefully received, as always) x


End file.
